If you think Bushwick should be landmarked, go to this meeting tonight

This gingerbread house on 71 Cornelia Street isn't protected. Photo by Cate Corcoran

New York City neighborhoods have few tools at their discretion to limit the powers that be, AKA gentrification and overdevelopment. Sure communities can protest incoming buildings they don’t want, but this method is rarely successful. Indeed, one of the only proven methods for keeping NYC nabes safe from supertalls and the destruction of beloved buildings is landmarking. Becoming a historic district, a designation intended to be reserved for areas with lots of structures worth saving, ensures that the Landmarks Preservation Commission will protect a community’s architecture, and thus its integrity, from much new construction (and when there is new construction, it is usually highly regulated).

In Bushwick, like Gowanus and the East Village before it, residents are focusing their energies on landmarking the area as a form of, it would seem, both preservation for history’s sake and to curb development. In recent years Bushwick has seen a number of its 19th century homes torn up, with hardly a block “untouched by alteration,” according to Brownstoner.

That is why tonight, Brownstoner originally reported, the Bushwick Community Plan is holding a Historic Preservation meeting from 6 to 8pm at 1349 Gates Ave. where they will hold a “conversation on the potential of historic districts and landmarking in Bushwick,” according to their poster. This will be the Community Plan’s third meeting, and all are welcome to join.

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